"For years now I had a tight feeling in my throat, and could not swallow sometimes when eating processed foods." ~ that's because your body, in it's infinite wisdom, knows the difference between food and NON-food. Processed "foods" are NON:)
and I recall Lyn122 saying that she felt that she may have had a goiterous condition in her thyroid(couldn't swallow lots of vitamins...) that has cleared up with Iodine supplementation.
And yes, sometimes things do appear to get "worse" before they get better, we've seen that time & time again here:)
And~ a link to the self-test, please? Thanks, dahlink, good report! :)